Are you missing opportunities to grow your business?

As a business owner have you ever wondered what else you could be doing to use your time more effectively? Do you sometimes find yourself distracted by things that aren’t going to make as much of a difference to the bottom line as something that could? What do you actually do with your time and can you honestly say it is the best use of time? By analysing how you spend your days you may find you are missing opportunities to do things that would grow your business.

Comfort zone

There are many reasons that you might spend time doing the things that are less beneficial to your business. Many of you may find yourselves operating within your comfort zone of things that you are more comfortable doing or things that you believe are necessary. You may spend so much of your time doing the same things day in day out that sometimes you miss important things that could make a huge difference.

Ever heard of the “eat a frog” concept?

When would you eat a frog if you had to do it every day? Are you the type that would save them all up and then panic that you had to do them all at once or are you the type to eat it first thing in the morning so you can enjoy the rest of the day? What we mean by that is there is something you need to do and you know it is important but you don’t want to do it because it is out of your comfort zone or you aren’t sure where to start. Doing it will –

Make you feel better that you have done it

Show you that it wasn’t as bad as you thought

Prove it was worth doing when you see the benefits.

Soon the daily challenging of eating the frog will show you just how much difference you can make to your business and help you grow in confidence.

Make a record of things that you do every day in a typical day

This is a great place to start. By writing down what you do in a typical working day and how much time it takes you the chances are you will see how much time you waste. You may spend 2 hours a day checking your e-mail for enquiries or working out calculations of how much more work you need, you may be spending your time looking at social media platforms and planning how you can be the next big thing on Facebook. In reality these things aren’t going to make you money.

Make a new schedule

Once you have seen how much time you spend doing the less important things it’s time to plan how you are going to spend your time. What can you do that will be more effective and generate genuine business. We look at some things that may be a better use of your time

Collate a database and if you aren’t collecting data – start!

Take 15-30 minutes a day to research improvement topics

Schedule a week’s worth of social media content so you aren’t distracted by it daily

Investigate how you could grow your business by adding a product line or another service

Look at what the marketplace has to offer by spending time each day researching

Do some market research. Contact past customers, ask people that come into your premises or people that you interact with about their experiences and what they feel you could do differently,

The list could go on but the point is that sometimes you need to stop and ask what you are doing and make a change to get better. After all if you always do what you have always done you will always get what you have always got.